By Evan Watkins
If you were anywhere near Trustees theater this weekend, you may have noticed evidence of a film festival that was, amazingly, not the Savannah Film Festival. From Thursday to Sunday, Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary sponsored the Ocean Film Fest, a 50-film event that centered on coastal and oceanographic issues. The final night featured nine short form documentaries produced by SCAD film and television students. Naturally, each film dealt with some topic relating to semi-local coastal issues or historical accounts.
Jim Carswell, festival emcee and local filmmaker, whose film “Turtle Dance” premiered at the festival Saturday night, said this of the competition, “What we saw this evening is an indication that the filmmaking industry, especially when it comes to documentaries and the oceans, is in very good hands.”
A panel of judges, from professional filmmakers to marine biologists, selected the top three films and rewarded them with the Dr. Robert O. Levitt Prize, consisting of a top prize of $1000, with all three winners grabbing a slot at the EcoFocus Film Festival in Athens.
Coming in at Third place was “Largemouth,” directed by Adam Farrell, a documentary on George Washington Perry, who in 1932 caught the world’s biggest large mouth bass for its time. The film was a light and nostalgic look at this legendary event, and featured interviews with Mr. Perry’s friends and family.
Second place went to “Saving a River,” directed by David Tapper and produced by Marc Casey. This beautifully written film focused on the effect that eutrophication has on the Savannah River.
Taking the top slot was the film “Six Feet Deeper,” directed by Aram Kaplan and produced by Jacob Hill. This highly topical documentary probed the issues surrounding the proposed widening of the Savannah River. Producer Jacob Hill summed up the ethical concerns about river widening, “The Savannah Harbor, which is actually the third largest harbor in the nation, is going to be deepened again for the third or fourth time in the past forty years, and every time they do that more salt water comes into the tidal freshwater marshes and destroys a little bit more of the beach.”
Many of the films were produced for the students’ directing the documentary class, giving the students a chance to pass a class and get a great resume builder at once. The class’ professor, Kevin McCarey advised the production of many of the competing films, and said, “It’s an honor for students to have their work judged by professionals from National Geographic, and those filmmakers were very impressed with the quality level in their work.”
This is the first time that the Ocean film festival has featured a student competition, Jim Carswell looks to the future of the Ocean Film Festival and what it can do for both the environment and the careers of burgeoning filmmakers, “Being that this is the first year we’ve had student films at the festival, I think it’s going to lay the groundwork for even better work, better stories and better films for all of us to enjoy and learn from next year.”